


To Catch Your Eyes

by doorstepdreams



Series: Missing Scenes [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff, Jealousy, Mutual Pining, Real Smooth Zimmermann, blink and you miss him OC, pre-zimbits - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 21:31:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11814585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doorstepdreams/pseuds/doorstepdreams
Summary: The day Jack 110% Zimmermann vaulted a snowbank to show Bitty his photos and spilled coffee all over him instead.Title is from "Jealous Guy" by John Lennon.





	To Catch Your Eyes

“I might just steal this from you, mister!”

Bitty swings his arms wide around him and looks at the Samwell hoodie hanging down to his thighs, bunched under his coat. “And it’s all warmed up too! You sure you’re not cold?”

Jack laughs outright.

“It’s not even that cold today, I don’t know why I put that on over this shirt.” He plucks at the thick Henley his mom had bought last Christmas. “Not like I can let you go without a layer, not when it’s my fault anyway.”

Bitty looks up with the same fond expression he wore when he’d stood covered in his and Jack’s coffees, but is interrupted by Nursey rushing past and calling out to them.

“’Sup you two?  Out for a constitutional on this beautiful wintry day?”

He turns and starts to walk backwards as he passes them.

“Jack got me all soaked in coffee a minute ago, so now he’s buying me one to say sorry!”

Nursey smiles and winks at them, not waiting to hear more. He runs smack into a group of girls who all scramble to help him up.

Jack and Bitty laugh and start walking again. Jack is only aware of Bitty’s hand curled into his elbow when it’s hastily tugged away again. Where even months ago Jack might have not understood the aborted gesture, now he slings an arm around Bitty’s neck and rocks him into his side.

They’re coming right up to the door of Annie’s anyway but it’s nice to feel Bitty relax into him. After holding the door open for him, Jack doesn’t put his arm back but tries to keep the comfortable closeness between them.

“It’s kinda crowded today. Go grab us that table in the corner under the heating vent, eh?”

Jack is glad Bitty’s stopped trying to pay for himself most of the time, especially since none of the other guys mind Mr. Moneybags picking up the tab.

He thinks about how easy things have become with Bittle this year; what a warm part of the Haus family he’s become.

He carries his black coffee and a giant minty sweet drink to where Bittle is sitting with his hat and mittens still on, hands together on the table and eyes on his drink as it’s set down in front of him.

“What?” he asks with jokey trepidation when he catches Jack smiling at him. It comes out more like ‘whu-ut’ and Jack smiles even wider.

“Nothing. I just realised if I used pictures of you in oversized winter clothes as my entire photography project this year, I’d pass without any critique at all.”

Bitty ducks his head and giggles, fluffing his hair as he pulls the hat off and throwing each of his mittens at Jack’s chest as he removes them.

“Shush! You know it’s those sunlit geese that’re gonna get the class excited, just you watch! Now, let’s finally look at those pictures you wanted to show me before you drowned me.”

Jack scoots closer so their chair legs are touching and turns on his camera, settling in for a good while. The photography class is worth it just for how much fun Bitty has commenting on each photo Jack takes, even the ones where he got the exposure or focus wildly wrong.

_“No, it’s interesting! Nice artistic choice for you to focus on the angry old guy pickin’ up dog doodoo in the background rather than the actual dog running over to you!”_

_“I just love the way you managed to make me look as pale as you using this oh-so-fascinating lighting technique!”_

They’re having such a good time that the sight of a handsome stranger at the pick-up counter staring in their direction makes Jack automatically frown. It makes the guy look away for a moment but Jack catches him looking back twice. Back at Bitty.

_No. Keep moving._

Jack almost jumps when Bitty flops against his shoulder laughing at all the pictures of geese. Jack slips an arm around him to hold him tight. When he looks up, the guy is smiling shyly and walking out the door.

Immediately Jack feels guilty. He knows he can be a jealous friend. It’s just that none of the people in his life ever let him get away with it.

Here is Bitty though, cheerfully wherever Jack wants him to be, whenever Jack wants him. Hell, he’d even been like that back when Jack was being the prize asshole he was when the kid was a frog.

He can’t actually think of a time Bittle had ever said no to anything Jack asked. Including squaring up to a defensemen twice his size with disastrous results.

Jack jumps when he looks down at Bitty staring up at him, sat upright on his own chair again.

“Where _do_ you go when you do that, Mr. Zimmermann?”

A look of sadness must pass over his face then because it’s mirrored on Bitty’s just as quickly.

“Eh, Bittle…”

Bitty waits patiently, big brown eyes full of emotion and hope.

“I’m not, uh... I’m not compromising your time, am I?”

At Bittle’s confused expression, he clarifies. “You know you don’t have to join me whenever I ask you to go somewhere or hang out, right? I know you’ve got a thing for taking care of people but you don’t really seem to make any time outside all of us—“

He’s stopped by a surprisingly frantic Bitty, clutching Jack’s forearm and looking… close to tears?

“Jack,” he finally gets out. “Do not ever think that. I don’t… you have no idea. You just. Oh lord!”

He ducks back down onto Jack’s shoulder again, this time shaking his head.

“Aw c’mon don’t smile at me like that! I’m tryin’ to say… _humph_ … that I wouldn’t wanna spend my days in college with anyone else but y’all.”

Bitty sits up straight again and snuffles ruefully. “If you’da told me two years ago I’d be hangin’ out every day with someone like you, I’d think it was too good to be true.”

“Bits…”

“No, no, don’t worry like that. I know you boys love me too, even if you don’t cry every time you mention it.”

Jack makes a ridiculous pouty face just to see Bittle laugh and his eyes clear again.

“Okay, bud. Just wanted to make sure.”

He hasn’t done his duty and he knows it, but the out Bitty gives him feels way too easy.

Bitty wipes at his cheeks with the sleeve of Jack’s hoodie.

“Mmmm so sooooft!” Bits coos, now petting his own face against it.

Jack has to hide his ridiculous smile inside his coffee cup. There’s no point pretending anymore: Bitty is that brand of unbearably cute that websites make lists about.

“You know you should just keep that,” he marks the way Bitty’s whole face lights up in a glow. “It’s gotten kinda small on me and I’ve got two more at home I haven’t worn yet. I know you like those sort of soft, worn-in type clothes.”

“Really! Jack, that’s so sweet!”

He actually hugs the hoodie around himself with both arms. “I do love some well-loved clothes, they feel like I’m gettin’ a cuddle all day long.”

Jack is absolutely dying to squeeze him. He can see now why Holster and Shitty love kissing Bitty on the cheeks. He looks like a bunny. It almost hurts.

Instead, he binks Bitty’s nose on the side with one finger and just like clockwork, Bitty sneezes and gets “mad” at him until Jack buys him a candy cane bar.  


**Author's Note:**

> People binking Bitty's nose to make him sneeze might become a thing in another fic I write.
> 
>  
> 
> [on tumblr](https://jack-manpain-zimmermann.tumblr.com/post/164230393860/to-catch-your-eyes)


End file.
